


A Place to Rest Your Feet

by cordsycords



Series: Critical Role Relationships Week 2018 [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 1 (Critical Role), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 10:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14975543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordsycords/pseuds/cordsycords





	A Place to Rest Your Feet

It is not often that Lady Cassandra Johanna Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo, Guardian of Woven Stone, and member of the Council of Whitestone appears on your front doorstep for no reason whatsoever.

Doorstep? Mountain-step? Hut… step?

Whatever.

The youngest de Rolo sibling appears in Zephyra on a rainy day, completely out of the blue. There’s no announcement of her presence weeks in advance or any sort of fanfare whatsoever. Just Cassandra, and two of her personal guards, on a trip through the kingdom of Tal’Dorei.

Even if they had time to prepare, the Ashari didn’t have much for royal accommodations. Keyleth can give them a hut to stay in, but they eat what everyone else eats, and they eat with everyone too. Keyleth has been to a ball once or twice in her life now, and she can’t imagine how many Cassandra has attended. It’s enough to make her traditional Ashari welcome a feel a little inadequate.

Cassandra herself is hard to read, to say the least. Keyleth has only ever seen Cass as a noble, the leader of her people, but in a different way than Keyleth is. She often forgets how young the younger de Rolo sibling actually is, a girl just barely into her twenties now. It’s how she holds herself in court, Keyleth remembers, with the dresses and jewellery that once belonged to her mother and older sister. She wears it well, refusing to act like a little girl playing in her mother’s shoes.

Away from Whitestone Cassandra looks… like Percy actually, dresses like him anyways. She wears high waisted trousers, and knee-high leather boots, along with a white blouse that sits under a long pale-blue coat. Her hair has been braided, and then pinned up into a bun. It’s been up like that for a while, though, with pieces of hair falling out from the updo over time.

Cassandra sips at the bowl of soup she was given, then takes a bite out of the bread on her lap. She eats quite voraciously compared to what Keyleth has seen before, losing some of the manners of nobility that have been instilled into her since birth.

“How’re Percy and Vex? And Elaina?” Keyleth asks, uncomfortable at the silence and trying to find common ground between the two of them, something that isn’t politics at least.

Cassandra stops eating and reaches to find a napkin she doesn’t have. When she finally notices what she’s done, she wipes her mouth with her sleeve instead.

“I wouldn’t know,” she looks down at her lap, “it’s been just over a month now since I’ve been home.”

That surprises Keyleth. With the addition of Elaina to the De Rolo family, she had assumed that Cassandra would pick up some of the governmental duties that her brother and sister-in-law would have to put aside for the raising of an infant. To have her in Zephyra alone was a surprise, that she had been gone for even longer was even more so.

“Percival suggested it, and Vex’ahlia was the one to convince me,” Cassandra adds, “they’ve moved back into the castle since I’ve been away, they’ll have all the help they need.”

“Any reason for the vacation? Or are you just wandering?”

Cassandra sighs, taking another sip from her bowl, “I’ve been… distant lately. Percival took notice and suggest I get away from everything for a while.”

Keyleth nods. It makes sense. Percy had been gone for five years before he even thought of returning to Whitestone, and Cassandra had been there the entire. When he returned, he didn’t stay for long, and she was suddenly thrust into the responsibilities of rule.

“You’re welcome here for as long as you wish to stay,” Keyleth says, reaching out her hand to touch Cassandra’s knee, “I can’t promise we have all the amenities of Whitestone, but we have good food, and good people, and some nice quiet places to think.”

All of the sudden, it seems as though an air of tension has been lifted. Cassandra lets out an almost indiscernible sigh of relief, slouching her shoulders.

“Thank you, Keyleth.”


End file.
